Finding Common Ground |
A Short Guide to Religious Diversity and Interfaith Engagement Using the
Resources of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University
The Pluralism Project is a two decade-long research initiative that engages students, academics, and community members in studying the new religious
landscape of the United States. The religious demographics of America are changing as immigrants from all over the world take the oath of citizenship and
claim the United States as their home. From the beginning this has been a nation of religious diversity, but today it is one of the most religiously diverse
nation on earth, despite its overwhelming Christian majority.
We invite you to reflect on this diversity during World Interfaith Harmony Week. As we gather to mark this international event with neighbors and friends,
old and new, we invite you to use this resource as a conversation starter. This brief guide offers a preview of the resources available at pluralism.org. In
particular, this guide is a roadmap for navigating On Common Ground: World Religions in America, an interactive web resource based on over two decades
of research by the Pluralism Project and our affiliates. By exploring and discussing these resources, we hope that you will be inspired to investigate the
religious landscape of your own city or town.
What is pluralism?
“Pluralism” and “diversity” are sometimes used as if they were synonymous, but diversity—splendid, colorful, and perhaps threatening—is not pluralism.
For example, in Silver Spring, Maryland a Vietnamese Catholic church, a Cambodian Buddhist temple, a Ukrainian Orthodox church, a Muslim community
center, a Hispanic First Church of God, and a Hindu temple share the same street. This is certainly diversity, but without any engagement or relationship
among the different groups it may not be an instance of pluralism.
Diana L. Eck, director of the Pluralism Project and a professor at Harvard University, defines pluralism with four points:
●
●
●
●
Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity.
Pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference.
Pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments.
Pluralism is based on dialogue. Pluralism is not a “given,” but an achievement.
To read more about this definition, please visit What is Pluralism?
What is interfaith?
Since its inception in 1991, the Pluralism Project has followed the development of America’s fast-changing religious landscape and studied new forms of civic
and interfaith relationships. In 2011, we embarked on a pilot study, America’s Interfaith Infrastructure: An Emerging Landscape, to look closely at interfaith
efforts in twenty cities across the United States.
This pilot study sought not to define anew the terms “interfaith” and “city” but rather to engage with these terms as defined by local practitioners. We invite
you to explore this resource, read and discuss the promising practices and case studies, check out the profiles of local leaders and consider for yourself:
What does it take to be an interfaith leader? Who are the interfaith leaders in your own community? What challenges might they face? You can also browse
our summary report. We invite you to ponder: How does your own local context impact the kind of interfaith engagement that happens in your city or town?
Three Ways to Explore Diversity + Build Pluralism in Your Neighborhood
The celebration of World Interfaith Harmony Week provides a great opportunity to learn more about religious and ethical traditions other than your own,
explore the religious landscape of your hometown, and find out more about how people of different faiths encounter one another in the public square.
Looking for a place to start? On Common Ground: World Religions in America is an excellent online introduction to the historical dimensions and current
realities of a multi-religious America. We invite you to:
Explore the landscape of religious diversity in your hometown. The American Constitution begins with the words, "We the People of the United States of
America..." Over the past two centuries, the "we" has come to include Buddhist Americans, like the Hawaiian-born Buddhist astronaut who died on the
Challenger, and Muslim Americans, like the Muslim mayor elected to office in Kuntz, Texas. Our "we" embraces Hindu and Jain engineers and surgeons,
Zoroastrian social workers, and Sikh political advisors. It includes Native American legislators, activists, and educators. It includes Christians of all races and
denominations—Hispanic Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, United Methodists, Vietnamese Catholics, Korean Presbyterians. It includes Jews from black-coat
Lubavitchers to Reform women rabbis. It includes Bahá’í and Unitarian Universalists, Wiccans and Earth Spirit communities, and Afro-Caribbean
practitioners of Santería and Vodou. And it includes a wide range of people who cherish the freedom to stand outside all of these religious communities—as
ardent secularists, as ethical humanists, or as committed atheists.
Take a few minutes to explore the twenty interactive maps in the Landscape section of On Common Ground. In addition to U.S. Census data,
these maps are populated by data from the Pluralism Project’s online Directory of Religious Centers. Is your community in our database?
Learn about the many religions represented in America today. Today, there are numerous rivers of faith flowing through the landscape of America. Some
have been here for centuries, and some are finding their way through a landscape that is relatively new for them. All of these religious traditions will continue
to change in the new context of multireligious America. The history of religions is not over, but is an ongoing history, taking place today before our very eyes
as new religious traditions begin to grow and flourish in the context of the United States. As a Vietnamese Buddhist monk told a Pluralism Project researcher
in Phoenix, "We must take the plant of Buddhism out of the pot and plant it now in the soil of Arizona." What is Buddhism becoming as it grows in the soil of
Arizona? How are American Muslims passing on their most cherished values in Houston or Seattle? How are American Hindus reshaping the complex
religious and regional traditions of India in Nashville? And how are America's Christians and Jews changing as they encounter new neighbors of other faiths
and learn to work together on school boards and interfaith councils?
Visit the Religion section of On Common Ground to follow the development and life of seventeen traditions in the American context. There you
will find a general introduction to each tradition, along with an introduction to the history of the tradition in the United States. There are glimpses
of the experiences of people in each tradition and discussions of some of the issues people in each tradition are grappling with. We invite you to
dig deep into this section on your own and to use the grid below to learn something new about your neighbors—and maybe even yourself.
Encounter diverse voices in the public square. The public square is a place of meeting. America has long had many kinds of meeting places—the town
greens, meeting houses, and commons of New England, the gracious plazas at the heart of Spanish towns like Santa Fe, the great green malls of
Washington D.C. that have seen so many demonstrations and celebrations. Legislative halls and courthouses, zoning boards and city council meetings,
schools and sports facilities may also be considered part of the public square. These are spaces that symbolize the free encounter of peoples and ideas that
is at the heart of civil society. These are spaces in which people gather together for the work, the ceremony, the celebration of the whole, leaving for a
moment the privacy of their homes and churches, synagogues and mosques, temples and gurdwaras.
Wherever you gather for 2014 World Interfaith Harmony Week, you are creating spaces of encounter for your own community’s diverse voices.
We want to hear about that! Please tell us your story at www.pluralism.org/interfaith/share.
Exploring Our Diversity + Our Common Ground
Each tradition represented here so neatly by a symbol has its own internal complexity. Religious traditions are dynamic and far more like rivers
than like static squares. Nourished by mountain springs, they gather tributaries, flow in full flood through the plains, divide into multiple branches,
merge in confluence with other streams, and spread into vast deltas. Some eventually spend themselves and dry up, leaving behind the traces
of an ancient riverbed. Others become so extensive and complex they constitute an entire river system. It is important to remember, then, that
living religious traditions are in motion as each new generation makes that tradition its own—in its own time, and in its own ways. Religions are
not simply sets of ideas or practices passed in a box from generation to generation, but living traditions of faith that must be appropriated anew.
Reflect on the countless ways and reasons America’s many traditions find common ground. This resource contains links to On Common Ground
World Religions in America (pluralism.org/ocg) where you can learn even more about these religions.
Afro-Caribbean
Many different streams
of tradition and culture
in America are linked to
Africa. These include
Cuban “Santería,” Haitian Vodou, Jamaican
Revivalism, Rastafarianism and Christian
and Muslim traditions shaped by particular
African contexts. Many traditions, like
Vodou, are often misconstrued in popular
imagination, while embraced by some as a
way to connect with ethnic heritage.
Confucianism
One of the vital lessons
Confucius taught was that
all humans are historical,
social beings whose selfrealization can only occur through
participating in a cooperative, ongoing quest
for communal flourishing. Many predict that
renewed interest in Confucianism on the part
of Chinese living in China and abroad will
contribute to a kind of “Confucian Revival” in
the 21st century.
Bahá’í
A common type of
Bahá’í meeting is the
fireside, which generally
has two elements: hospitality and discussion
of the Bahá’í faith. The “classic” fireside
described by Shoghi Effendi (head of the
Bahá’í faith from 1921-1957) involves a
Bahá’í inviting someone to his or her home
to discuss the faith in an atmosphere of
service and friendship.
Daoism
Won-Lim Temple, also
known as Weaverville
Joss House, is part of a
state historic park in California. Today, it is
estimated there are around 30,000
practitioners living in the United States. Also,
American Daoists are highly decentralized, a
factor that contributes, at least in part, to
their vastly divergent forms of practice.
Buddhism
One of the most
popular and
prominent images in
many Mahayana
Buddhist temples is that of the Bodhisattva
Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion.
Bodhisattva means one who aspires toward
universal Buddhahood or Enlightenment.
Guanyin and Mahayana Buddhism first
came to the United States with Chinese
immigrants during the Gold Rush.
Hinduism
The word bhakti, from a
root meaning “to share,”
conveys the sense of
“sharing” inherent in the
love of God. Not only does the devotee love
God, but God, they say, loves the devotee.
Bhakti is expressed in many ways—in songs
and hymns, in temple worship, in dance and
in plays—and is one of several streams
within the Hindu tradition.
Christianity
Christianity across
the United States
is broad and
diverse. Greater
Boston’s many churches include Roman
Catholic, Eastern and Oriental
Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical,
Charismatic, and Pentecostal
congregations, and the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Humanism
Humanists often
emphasis the idea
that everyone is
fundamentally of
equal moral worth and that, by working
together, people, regardless of belief,
can build a better world. The number of
Humanist communities that regularly
meet for discussion and fellowship has
ballooned in recent years. One such
example from Texas is Houston Oasis.
Islam
Both joy and faithfulness
bring millions of Muslims
from all over the world
to Makkah for the hajj
pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of the faith.
It brings together the worldwide ummah,
making clear that Muslims of all races, ethnic
groups, and cultures are equal in God’s
presence, all wearing the same simple white
garment, walking and praying and eating
together in the most holy places. The other
pillars are shahada (profession of faith),
salat (prayer), zakat (purification of wealth),
and sawm (fasting during Ramadan).
Paganism
Many Pagans see
divinity as both present
in the physical world
and as multiple. Pagan
rituals commonly focus on honoring a deity
or deities; observing natural cycles, such as
seasonal changes or the waxing and waning
of the moon; or celebrating rites of passage.
In 2013, the 34th annual “Spiral Dance” in
San Francisco honored the dead during
Samhain. The event regularly draws over
1,500 people.
Zoroastrianism
The eternal flame is a
key symbol in
Zoroastrianism; the
element of fire is
respected and must
never be extinguished. One of the most
common misunderstandings is that
Zoroastrians are “fire worshippers.” While
the fire solemnizes the prayers, the worship
is directed to Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Life
and Wisdom. In America, most fire temples
have flames equivalent to that of a small
household fire, or may maintain a small,
continuously burning flame.
Jainism
When Jains ask
themselves how faith,
knowledge, and
conduct can be
brought into harmony with one another and
realized in everyday life, they start with the
five basic vows. Aparigraha, one of the
vows, means not clutching possessively.
Cultivating attachment to worldly objects,
and even to people, binds the soul to the
cycle of birth and death. Love should be
balanced and constant, rather than a volatile
force that turns life into a sequence of
extremes.
Shintō
Shintō is indigenous to
Japan. As early as
the1930s the high
priest of the Tsubaki
Grand Shrine engaged in dialogue with
Unitarians, both American and Japanese. At
this shrine and at Shintō shrines globally one
of the most important rituals is Harai. A
priest waves a simple wooden wand with
paper streamers toward the shrine and over
those assembled to sweep away impurities
and restore the harmony of life.
Judaism
Torah is one of the
central symbols of
Judaism and is often
seen as embodying
the tradition’s focus on study, understanding
and interpretation of sacred texts. The
weekly Torah reading is the heart of the
synagogue service. The scrolls of the Torah,
considered the direct utterance of God, are
kept in the holy ark at the front of the
synagogue, often covered with velvet. On
the holiday of Simchat Torah, the yearly
reading of the Torah is complete and
celebrated with singing and dancing.
Native
Traditions
In none of the Native
American languages
do we find a word that
translates well into the English word
“religion.” One of the few common
denominators underlying the diversity of
Native traditions is the sense that all
dimensions of social life are profoundly
integrated. The term “religion” seems to
suggest an artificial separation of their
spiritual traditions from their economy,
government, art, law, medicine, and
landscape.
Sikhism
The very first words of
the Sikh scripture, the
Guru Granth Sahib are
Ek Onkar, God is One.
It is a universal and inclusive affirmation.
The one God can only be the God of all
humanity, not the Sikhs alone. Another Sikh
virtue is the state of optimism, or Chardi
Kala. A youth camp by the same name has
been run by the Sikh Youth Federation of
North America since the 1970s.
Unitarian
Universalism
Unitarians and
Universalists joined in
1961 to form a new
and dynamic faith that affirms freedom
of thought, religious diversity, and seven
guiding—but not binding—principles.
These include justice, equity and
compassion in human relations. Many
UUs seek to find themselves “Standing
on the Side of Love".
Your Turn:
1. What is one thing that
surprised you (or, what one
new thing have you
learned) from reading
about these traditions?
Why?
2. What inspires you to find
common ground?
3. How are you building
common ground?